5 Tips for Garage Door Safety
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Garage doors offer convenience to those who need to stow their vehicles away, but don’t want to deal with the hassle of opening and closing a door each time they need to enter or exit the garage. With anything heavy that moves, though, there are certain safety issues that need to be addressed. Here are 5 tips for staying safe around your garage door.

1. Keep the openers away from small children. Kids love to play, and by leaving a garage door opener laying around unattended, you’re basically offering them a brand new toy to play with. There are obvious risks here as far as injuries are concerned, and the children could unknowingly cause damage to your garage door or opener while playing.

2. Regularly check out your garage door. Give your garage door and all of its parts a good look at least once per month. You may find failing areas or parts before the issues become larger and more expensive.

3. Keep your garage door fully open or fully closed. Keeping your garage door partially open is an invitation for trouble. When the door opening mechanism is started again, it could go either up or down, and may collide with something.

4. Unplug the automatic opener while on vacation. This isn’t a matter of physical safety, but it could help protect your home and the belongings inside. This prevents someone who somehow hacks your code or someone who comes up with a spare garage door opener from using it to enter your garage and home.

5. Keep your remote opener out of your parked car. It’s very easy for someone to reach into your car and use your garage door opener to open your garage and possibly gain access to your home.

Interested in talking more about your North Metro garage door needs? Get in touch with Premium Garage Door Service today at (763) 607-3402.

Creative Developer Builds Smartphone Garage Door Opener
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JsChiSurf, a member of mobile phone development community XDA, wanted a way to open his current garage door with his Android smartphone. So he built a system himself.

The system consists of a custom Android application called “OpenSezMe,” which JsChiSurf wrote himself, as well as a Linux PC, and a serial port relay controller to open and close the circuit that controls the garage door’s open/close capability. The OpenSezMe application controls the garage door over a data connection, and thanks to the GPS support built into Android’s operating system, can only open or close the door if the device is within a certain distance of the home.

Interested in seeing how this custom garage door opener works? We’ve embedded a demonstration video below.

A Solar Panel Garage Door — Can It Happen?
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What if you could commute to and from work in your plug-in hybrid without the use of gas OR electricity from your home? OEMTek believes they might have the answer.

The company is now researching a solar panel garage door — a garage door constructed of solar panels, with a system that can be used to charge your plug-in hybrid vehicle. For commuters who drive between 50 to 70 miles, this would mean that you could make your trip to and from work without having to buy gas, or utilize your home’s electricity. Essentially, you’d be operating your car with free energy.

This door isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, but we’ll undoubtedly be keeping an eye out for future developments from OEMTek. Such a garage door would not only change the garage door industry, it would also serve to cut our carbon footprints down tremendously.

Standard Garage Door Torsion Springs
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Standard torsion springs are the most common type of garage door springs, and are found usually when one or two springs are installed, though more than four can be used for garages that require wide openings.

Standard torsion springs can be installed in one of four different system configurations: linear, duplex, triplex or mixed.

  • Linear: Used mostly on wide garage doors
  • Duplex: Two larger springs are used, with each spring having a smaller one inside
  • Triplex: Like the duplex system, except with three springs inside
  • Mixed: A combination of the linear system with either the duplex or triplex system

Does you garage use standard torsion springs? We can help. The Premium Garage Door Service team has experience installing these springs in any kind of setup, and we’ll put them in safely so your garage door again works like new. Contact us now at one of our four phone numbers listed on our Contact page.

DIY Garage Door Repairs – Why You Should Call a Garage Door Company
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The first instinct of many when they are having garage door issues is to perform the garage door repairs by themselves. While you might think you’re saving money by not calling a garage door professional and the project – whether it be a new door or opener – might seem simple enough, you should never take the DIY approach to your garage door.

Premium Garage Door Service has been in operation for over 20 years, and we’ve become masters of our craft by keeping up to date on industry trends and new technologies. We know what NOT to do when it comes to garage door repairs.

So, why should you call a professional garage door company? The biggest reason is though the homeowner might think they know all there is, simple mistakes (which can turn into very costly repairs later) can still happen. These mistakes can include:

  • Improper leveling of the new garage door
  • Faulty parts or assembly of important components
  • Errors in laying the track for automatic garage doors
  • Mistakes in wiring the electric
  • Blunders in installing the joints and connections

Troubleshooting garage door issues is no simple task, and while your inner handyman might say, “Just take care of it yourself,” you will still have to spend time learning what (and what not) to do, and these are skills you may not use again.